Now that the teabaggers are in charge of Florida's legislature, cities and counties are no longer allowed to enforce their local gun laws.

This year the State Legislature passed a new law that forces counties and municipalities to do away with, and stop enforcing, their own firearms and ammunition ordinances by Oct. 1. Mayors, council and commission members will risk a $5,000 fine and removal from office if they "knowingly and willfully violate" the law. Towns that enforce their ordinances risk a $100,000 fine. To comply with the law, cities and counties are poring over their gun ordinances, repealing laws and removing gun-related signs. In Palm Beach County that means removing ordinances that ban people from taking guns into county government buildings and local parks and from firing guns in some of its most urban areas. In Groveland, that means they can fire their guns into the air to celebrate. And in Lake County, firearms will soon be allowed in libraries.

This is why I am forced to disagree anytime someone suggests that we should never touch Medicare at all and under any circumstances.

MIAMI (Reuters) – Ninety-one suspects, including doctors and nurses, have been charged in connection with a new rash of healthcare fraud schemes aimed at bilking the government out of about $295 million, U.S. authorities said on Wednesday. [...]

Around half of the defendants were charged in Miami, the southeastern city widely viewed by law enforcement experts as the healthcare fraud capital of the United States.

The Miami defendants alone were accused of participation in fraud schemes involving a total of nearly $160 million in false billings for home and mental health services, occupational and physical therapy, HIV infusion, and other services.

According to court documents, the defendants allegedly participated in schemes to submit claims to Medicare for treatments that were medically unnecessary and often never provided.

Obviously fraud has nothing to do with benefits, but as far as I am aware, no one in the Democratic party has ever suggested cutting benefits.

The Democratic party's preferred method of "fixing" Medicare is altering the rules of payment and delivery, focusing on grouping necessary procedures into fewer appointments and reducing the amount of duplicate procedures to save money.

Naturally, the Republicans oppose anything that would save the nation money with cries of "socialism" and "government takeover."

By the way, as I've pointed out several times in the past, Medicare fraud is a $60 billion dollar per year industry and it's the most lucrative crime in the state of Florida, surpassing even the illegal drug trade. It would seem appropriate that the governor of Florida is a Medicare fraudster.

Strengthening Medicare involves altering the system to ensure this kind of abuse is no longer possible, or at the very least much more difficult. Strengthening Medicare has nothing to do with cutting benefits, which is what the Republicans would prefer to do.